Creating North Star Trails in Photoshop using a single shot
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- čas přidán 18. 05. 2014
- Create the popular North Star trails in Photoshop with this powerful and simple technique using just a single shot of the night sky. Enjoy!
Now you can be more flexible at your locations and spend time creating a variety of compositions instead of spending hours at a single spot and taking hundreds of shots to create star trails later. [Tip: Just make a note of the position of the North star at location to create an authentic star trail with the correct position of the North star.]
To see how you can create vortex star trails or a meteor shower star trails, check out the other videos on this channel.
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Thanks a lot Hammad!! Very well explained, awesome outcomes!!!
Excellent job with this tutorial, Hammad! It helped me a lot, thank you for this video!
Wonderful Tutorial, the only thing I noticed that I had to change with in Photoshop was going from Essentials mode to Photography mode or else "Actions" was not available. I dont know if this was an update done or what but after I switched it worked perfectly! Thank you so much!!!
Wicked, took some time to get it feeling and looking right but this was really helpful x thankyou so much!!
Excellent! Just need to get an image of the night sky...
So amazing great tutorial
excellent mate... well done.
Very cool indeed! Thank you kindly! :)
Awesome bro
Thanks for the Tutorial, Great!
thumbs up hammad . nice tutorial
thank you @Gary Young.
Nicely done.... subscribed
thats soo awesome thanks for the video
I'm running into problem after problem doing this with landscape elements in the foreground. Any tips on how to deal with them? I tried making a duplicate layer with the foreground elements deleted but that's not working too well...
Thank you! I just found your tutorial in DPS. I don’t have the option of taking hundreds of photos due to limits on my equipment and budget, so I think this is a great alternative!
You are welcome :) And indeed, it's a great alternative that was born out of necessity
What if there is something in the foreground just like the reference image you had shown?
It isn't going well if there is a foreground in the frame using this technique. Please let us know what you do in such a senario.
thanks !
great tutorial! would it be possible to create the streaking star trail effect that shows up when polaris is behind the camera?
If Polaris is behind the camera, then the camera is facing South, which would make the trail appear curvy beginning at lower left of the frame and progressing upwards in a curve to the center and then back down to the lower right in a curve. That, is not possible to simulate for a number of reasons.
thank you very much!! :D
Awesome Tutorial Hammad !!...
+Rob sut Thank you Rob
can you please post the link for the night sky .thanks :)
Great tutorial. Do you have a video that shows you blending the startrails you created with another photo? Thanks in advance
+Andrew H Thanks Andrew. I haven't yet made a tutorial for compositing stars with another photo.
Thanks for the response. If you were planning on it, I would be interested to see how you get the star trails to blend seamlessly into your standard night photos without haloing like your shot at 0:24. Trees are the hardest to blend for me.
Hey Hammad Iqbal. Awesome Video, and I got great results using it. However, I'm just wondering if by any chance would you know why my Transform Pivot Point would go to a different location then what I had set it to starting from the step of doing 1 degree rotations. I ended up having to manually enter the pixel location for all the transformations after the 10 stacks of .1 degrees.
+Rommel Artola The issue is common if you are using Photoshop version above 2013. It's surely a software bug from Adobe.
Awesome, thank you so much for your hasty reply!!
Sweet video. But can I play it more than 10 times and get more trails? It in your other video I did it 80 times. If I go high than 80 with I get more trails?
Yes you can do it more than 80 times. Experiment and see.
can i get the action for that star trail? :(
HI @Hammad, I am new to photoshop. You tutorial is awesome. Problem I have an image wherein a segment of it are the star and not the entire image.
I just the want the sky to rotate and not transform the entire image. You showed an image similar to that in the beginning but you gave the demo on a complete night sky without any foreground object. Can you please share a demo onto how do I apply this same on an image with foreground object ??
Would be really helpful,.,,, Thanks in advance
+Kaushik Chakraborty 1. Select the foreground image
2. Create a mask
3. Fill out the 'selected' part with the fill tool
4. Follow his steps on this new image
5. After all that is done clip the mask onto the final star trails image
This should help!
+Vatsal Panchmatia fill with what Vatsal? if there a way using the mask to delete the foreground from the stars?
Big like, saves the camera life :)
+pescarull but kills the fun of it, and ruins the nature of the night sky if you don't point it exactly on the celestial pole next to Polaris ;)
Hi Hammad, thank you for the great tutorial!
However, when I changed the rotation to 1 degree and apply it, it doesn't make the trail longer but it makes the stars misplaced instead, so that the star trails have gaps on it and it also creates some kind of twin stars. The only way to make it nice is not to change the rotation so I have to keep using the 0.1 degree rotation to make it look good but it takes too much time. Is there any way you can help me ?
That would be great! Thanks before! :)
Nevermind, I figured a way when I read the description. If you guys have the same problem you should make a note of the position of the North star and you have to input it each time you transform. Though I hope there's a way that this could be done automatically like in Hammad's video. :))
Some Photoshop users have experienced the same issue in which the position of the pivot point changes every time the action is run. I have not been able to understand the reason for this issue.
For some reason, when I get to the part where you change it from 0.3 to 1, there is a distinct gap between the trails. What am I doing wrong? Followed it step by step
Make sure you are following the steps as follows:
- Apply 0.1 degree rotation x 10 times / Merge the 10 new layers
- Change the rotation value to 1 degree / Play the action 5 times / Merge the 5 new layers
- Change rotation value to 5 degree / Play the action 5 times / Merge the 5 new layers
- For the trails to form in CCW direction, change the rotation value to -25 degree / Play the action 1 time
How do you set it on other photo?
+Vasu Trivedi Once you finish the trails, you can blend it with another photo in Photoshop using layer masks.
when i go from the 0.01 stage ... i merge the 10 layers .. i do what you instruct but the rotation point dosnt see to stay in the same place ..can you help
Hi Gary, the only reason that could happen is if the free transform step is not recorded in the action. Make sure to watch the video again in HD so you dont miss anything. For further questions, please send me a private message to my facebook page. Thanks.
I'm having the same problem. Using Photoshop CC it all works fine running the action at 0.1 degrees. As soon as I overtype the rotation to 1 degree it seems to reset the rotation point to the centre... What am I doing wrong?
smartphotography same here :) i used the radial blur tool instead then...
Lets face it hammad just dosnt work but i appreciate the effort
The pivot point doesnt seem to stay in the same place on versions below CC. Same issue has been reported by some other users who aren't using Photoshop CC.
Good hack for those who can't go out in wild ..
TRIED THIS ABOUT 8 TIMES AND RE DID THE ACTION SEVERAL TIMES AND IT DID NOT WORK. THERE ARE DOTTED LINES AND THEY ARE NOT EVEN IN ALIGNMENT. PLEASE ADVISE. P'SHOP CC. THANKS
Some people have had the same issue with certain versions of Photoshop (below version CC usually). Unfortunately, the issue is not with the action or how to make the action, it's just in the way the action is played in certain versions of Photoshop, and I have no solution for it.
It does not work on my P'shop cc. It does work on P'shop cs6 ! Thanks for the video. I'll be discussing with Adobe in the near future. Thanks again....
i get this problem when using Photoshop CC
i.imgur.com/NI6Tb3y.png?1
I got that problem too, have you managed to fix it ?
What If there are Objects in the foreground?? Hammad Iqbal
+Raghav Sudarshan Sorry for the late response. Its better to take a photo of the sky without a large object in the foreground so you dont run into the issue. Important thing is that the object should not block the sky.
S U P E R B..
Why bother going out and take a photo of the night sky? Just release the shutter with the lens cap on any time of day. Voila, you got a night sky shot. Open your night sky shot in PS and make stars of any color, then do the rest of the tutorial. I'm sorry but I do not agree with your way of creating star trails. There is no sense of pride in doing this.
The way I see it is, you have gone and done it a few times by spending hours outdoors in the cold night air. You show it to your followers or fan/client base. People have seen your star trail landscapes. Your now known for producing nice images. You now don't have to spend hours in the cold every single time you want to do a star trail image, why not use this technique considering it achieves the EXACT same results ? I do see your point though don't get me wrong.
are u kidding ? why take 300 shot and spend a lot of time and also fuck the camera ? its just a good way with the same result just u save ur camera and most important thing in life "ur expensive time" . its dose not making any sense to spend a lot of time for a single star trail shot when u can make the same result with this way
who cares
A nifty trick, but ultimately kinda sad. A huge part of successful, fulfilling astrophotography is being out there, capturing the shot(s).
Agreed. He didn't need to even go outside his door.
Ha ha that's hilarious, all the astro photographers freezing their bollocks off for hours - I don't see any difference between your results and theirs.
Or you could learn photography.
This is not Photography.
You go too fast and its hard to follow you. I wont be seeing any more
Cheater